


A Void In All Things

by Tanachvil



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Gaslighting, Gen, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Pre-Canon, Underage Sex, and sometimes I made myself sick writing this, it's bleak and it's a bit crude, potentially very triggery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-08-23 09:59:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8323561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanachvil/pseuds/Tanachvil
Summary: "Magic exists to serve man, and never to rule over him. Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children."It starts when she's just a child and they take her away, but she is lucky.They are all lucky. The Templars take care of them and there are far worse Circles in Thedas than the Ostwick Tower.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will update with the chapters, so keep an eye on that.  
> Nothing is very graphic when it comes to descriptions of violence, but I feel I should warn you all the same.

_All that the Maker has wrought is in His hand  
_ _Beloved and precious to Him.  
_ _Where the Maker has turned His face away,  
_ _Is a Void in all things;  
_ _In the world, in the Fade,  
_ _In the hearts and minds of men._

_Threnodies, 12_

  


 

She’s five. The serving girl from the kitchen is crying while she takes away her mother’s plate. She doesn’t understand why and mother wouldn’t tell her.  
She is brought to her room to change into her nightclothes, her nanny brushes her hair in long strokes, singing a sweet song. She forgets her curiosity, but something lingers, something inside her remains shaken and she feels sad.   
When she falls asleep, she dreams, and in her dream she’s sad and cries.   
There is a table, and she has to collect all the plates and the cups and all the food that is left, but the table keeps getting away, every time she tries to reach it it’s a bit farther and so is her family, still sitting, still drinking from cups and eating from forks. They slip away, slowly, even as she calls at them, even as she cries.

Then she realizes: it’s not them, they are not moving. It’s her. Something is dragging her away, far away, and she has so much to do, so many plates, so many cups to wash, she cries, she calls for her mother, for her brother, for father, but no one answers.

  


***

  
She is eleven and it doesn’t happen in a flash, all of a sudden, like the tales they tell in the Chantry when they warn you and scare you.  
It happens quietly, so quickly, and for a brief moment, just the blink of an eye, but she sees it. No one else does. She is so scared she feels her heart exploding in her chest.   
It’s just a flame, a little, innocent flame, and the day is so cold, in the gardens.   
It’s a little flame, not much of a menace, not really, but it’s on her hand, and it comes from her, and that makes all the difference.   
Her hand is warm, but the rest of her body is pure ice, now. Terrified.   
She runs to her room, closes the door and tries again. No flame, no fire, no magic. A nightmare, a daylight dream, for sure. She lies to herself and she gets a brief moment of comfort from that.

When it happens again, she is not alone, and it’s not a flame, it’s a barrier.   
Her brother is throwing snow at her and aims for her face, too fast and with too much strength. She’s going to get hurt, and something inside her knows it, so something else wakes up to protect her, and that’s it.  
Everybody knows.   
Her brother, the stable boy, her friend Janelle, and her mother… Her mother’s eyes go wide and still as ice, from the porch just a few feet away she can see her mother’s mouth open, but no sound comes out. Or maybe it does, she can’t tell, since her ears ring like crazy, her heart beats a wild rhythm and everything is chaos inside her.   
Later, that night, she prays. And prays. She cries to the Maker, she begs him, she promises, she asks forgiveness, she asks for mercy. Her answer is silence and she feels guilty for it.   


No one is allowed to cry, when she leaves, her father wants her departure to be dignified. They have cried, sure, but privately, discreetly, when no one could see them, not like some common serving girl from the kitchen.   
Her mother smiles when she fastens her cloak and gives her one last kiss.   
Her father takes her and places her small hand into the Templar’s big one. “Take care of her, Ser” he says.   
She feels like she’s being married off, and she would laugh but then she realizes that will never happen, now.

The Templars are polite and proper and they help her get into the carriage, closing the drapes against the cold wind. One of them is young, not much older than her brother, she thinks. He smiles at her and then hides it quickly.   
When the horses move, she feels it, all of a sudden, this is happening, and there is nothing she can do to help it.

She moves the drapes, she wants to look at her mother one more time, at her home, while they move away, before the bend in the road takes the view away from her. The young Templar sitting in front of her moves so fast that she doesn't notice, until his hand grabs her wrist and the other one pushes her down, firmly back on her seat.

She yelps, scared, startled and hurt. His armoured hand squeezes too tight and her head hits the wooden back of the seat.

“Sit down, mage. We’ll be at the tower soon.”

  
She feels the carriage turn, it’s too late, now.

 

***

  


She’s twelve, and she is cold. Her room is small and the cover thick, but the wind howls outside and she hears them, down the corridor. Someone is crying, softly, and then a door closes and there are whispers and steps on the stone.  
The stone carries, like a million little echoes of whimpers and muffled pleas, and rustling, and then the sound of a slap and then silence.  
She’s cold and she doesn’t want to hear, even if she doesn’t know what she is hearing, but the stone carries.

  
She’s twelve, and Silvy is right in front of her when she passes out.  
They are learning about concentration and centering, and how to draw their strength from their inner magical reserve, when her classmate, two years older, blonde and thin like a willow, suddenly gets up and then falls immediately down. Their teacher is behind her in a flash and a Templar helps him get Silvy up on the table.  
Exhaustion, they say. She overextended herself.  
She doesn't know her well, but her room is just down the corridor from her own and she can hear her, some nights, and she knows she is tired and weary. The stone carries.

  
“She can’t sleep anymore…” someone whispers, too soft for the Templar to hear, but their teacher has a fine ear and he closes his eyes for a moment.

  
“She needs to rest. I will have her taken to the infirmary, and she will stay there for a couple of nights, Ser.”   
Something passes between the two men, something she doesn’t understand. The Templar looks worried.   
They take good care of them, in the tower. She is lucky.

 

She is twelve when Silvy turns into an abomination in the middle of the mess hall.  
They kill her.   
They kill the thing that has taken her place.  
Blood and gore, and a moment of burning cold all around, and then it’s over.

She has put up a barrier, a weak one, but steady. It’s the thing she can do best and her teachers tell her she is very promising for her age. She is so proud when they praise her. She feels like she has not disappointed them all, like the Maker has something in store for her, after all. She will be a good mage, a powerful and respected one, she will protect and she will have control and they will be proud of her.

When the cold washes over her, her barrier falls and she feels like something gets torn out of her, and then a piece of Silvy hits her in the face.  
The Purge leaves her weak for hours afterwards and she can still feel blood and gore on her face, even after she has scrubbed and scrubbed. She doesn’t sleep, that night, but the corridor is silent and the stone carries nothing.

She has no control, she has no power, she is cold and she knows the Maker has not forgiven her.

  


***

  


She is thirteen and it’s a sunny day. They are allowed in the gardens for one hour after the lessons and it’s a glorious summer afternoon. The light reflects on the Templar’s pauldrons and she thinks he must be cooking inside all that metal.

She walks slowly, as they have taught her: her hands visible and a quiet smile on her face, reassuring, not alarming, harmless. He turns to look at her and doesn’t smile back.

  
“Would you like some water, ser? I can fetch it for you.”   
  
He looks puzzled, for a moment.   
  
“Well… Thank you, yes. That would be most appreciated, Dorothea.”

He knows her name and she knows his. Brenden was just more than a boy, freshly ordained, when he took her from her home, but now he’s a man, two years older than her brother, and he’s usually kind and even smiles sometimes. Once he openly laughed at a joke her friend made.  
She’s still a girl, too young and inexperienced for the Harrowing and she doesn’t look forward to it, but that means she hasn’t proven herself yet and Templars are nervous around her and the others like her.

She comes back with the jug of cool water and he takes it, a small nod is quite enough as a thank you and she is happy to help, happy to be of service.   
Back at home she never learned how to help, how to serve, that was a job for the kitchen staff, or the cleaning girls, the stable master, the nanny. Now she is happy to take care of others, her classmates and the Templars alike, and she enjoys the little things she can do, even the scheduled chores the Tower enforces.

Here the Mages take care of themselves, the help is scarce and mostly secluded from them. They clean and they cook, but rarely come in direct contact with her or her fellow mages. It’s for their safety, they say. She never understood if they mean the Mages’ safety or the servants’, but she thinks it’s probably right anyway.

She goes back to her friends, walking barefoot on the grass, a small indulgence that would have been deemed scandalous back home.

Nor is throwing a ball with one of the other boys and they jump and shout at each other. Her friend Harvine is sitting on a bench, with eyes closed and her face towards the sun, she is smiling.

She feels happy and free.   
Somewhere inside her she wishes she could feel like this every day.  
She swats away the sudden sadness that blossoms with the thought. They still have half an hour before they have to go back inside, she’ll have time to be sad later.

  


***

 

She is fourteen and she is scared. There is shouting and crying and the stone carries. They’re eating in silence, everyone is pretending not to hear, but they are listening.  
Enchanter Hayes has a deep, rich voice and he’s scary when he’s angry, but now he sounds more desperate than anything else and it’s heartbreaking and frightening.

  
“...enough!” there’s a loud bang and she recognizes Knight Captain Cauldwell’s voice.

Everyone flinches and pretends harder not to notice.  
Time passes in silence. Then they hear the enchanter’s voice again.

“...told you. And now you come and tell me there was no other choice? There was a choice, there _was_ one before you took it away!”  
  
“He was dangerous! You all are. And you’d better remember, Hayes, that…” the volume drops and she cannot understand anymore, until the voices become loud again. “...we will exercise that right. It is our prerogative and it is our duty!”  
  
“It is abuse of power!”  
  
“Be very careful, enchanter…”  
  
“The First Enchanter will…”  
  
“The First Enchanter approved it!”

Silence.

 

They don’t see Arwell for weeks and by the time she meets him again she already knows. He looks peaceful, he greets her when she brings him a message from one of the Enchanters and he thanks her for her service. He doesn’t smile or frown. He doesn’t look at her more than it’s necessary before returning to his task.  
He was funny, Arwell, he was handsome and charming and had a wicked sense of humor. He’d made a Templar laugh, once. Now he’s Tranquil.  
He’s the same, but she doesn’t think he’s handsome anymore.

 

“Enchanter Hayes?” she is mincing elfroot with a steady hand, her cuts even and precise. She is good with herbs and potions and she thinks going into healing and restorative magic will be a good choice for her future. Her teachers seem to think the same. She’s a born guardian, Dorothea Trevelyan, she has a natural talents for barriers and protective spells and she can heal extremely well for a mage as young as she is.

“Yes, child?”  
  
“What did Arwell do to be made Tranquil?”

Her question gives birth to a frozen silence.   
There are six people in the room: The Enchanter, an older mage with blue eyes she thinks is called Brian, her classmate Nor - Norwood, from Ostwick, just like her - two Templars and herself.  
No one answers. For a moment it seems like no one even breathes.

Enchanter Hayes closes his eyes for a second and then looks at her with worry and sadness painted all over his face.

“You were friend with Arwell, were you not, my dear?”  
  
“I was… I liked him. He was funny and we talked, sometimes.”   
  
“You can still be friends with him, Dora, you know that of course.”   
  
She feels… For a moment she doesn’t understand what she feels, but then it’s clear as crystal. Anger. She suddenly feels like white hot fire filled her and she knows he ears are red and her hand has clamped around the knife handle. She breathes deeply, in and out, until she thinks she can speak without raising her voice to her teacher.   
“How?”

“He’s still Arwell, even if…”  
  
“You must pardon me, Enchanter, but he is not. How can I be friends with... With… He’s _hollow_ .”  
  
“And yet he is alive, Dorothea. Don’t you think it’s a sad fate to be alive and alone? Even if you cannot feel lonely?”

She pauses. She is about to cry out just that. Why should Arwell need friends, when he cannot feel, when he cannot even understand what friendship is?  
But it’s true. It is sad. And maybe Arwell can’t feel it, but she can, and she could not ignore that, now.

And yet, she is not done. She cannot leave it be.  
She is fourteen and she is becoming a bit stubborn.

“Enchanter, forgive me, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I have not, Dorothea.”  
  
In Hayes eyes there is a warning, stern but very clearly worried as well.  
She doesn’t miss it, but she decides to ignore it.

“This is not something that is forbidden, Enchanter, is it? We are allowed to talk and I just want to know why was he…”

 

“Because he was dangerous and unruly, and he never kept his mouth shut.” 

Knight Captain Cauldwell is tall, and his eyes are usually kind. Not this time.  
He walks in and he is the only one in the room to make some noise, of the seven of them now present.

Dorothea turns to face him.  
She is not scared. She hasn’t done anything wrong and she has never caused any trouble, and her family is very well known and important and… She is terrified. She has no reason to be, but she feels like her legs are about to give up any moment now. She looks at the Templar anyway and holds his gaze. Steady.

“Your friend Arwell broke the rules more than once, he spoke when he was ordered to shut up, he did what he was not supposed to do and when reprimanded and punished and made to promise not to do it again he simply ignored it all and repeated his actions. Your friend was a rebel and a dangerous element, Dorothea Trevelyan.”  
  
“He was sixteen, Ser.”

She doesn’t know why she says that, but it’s the only thing that makes sense and it comes out of her mouth just like that. It is something she heard others say, her mother, her nanny, others. It rings true. Arwell was just sixteen, a sixteen years old boy, ready for the Harrowing but still…

He hits her. Backhanded, hard, fast.  
He’s not wearing his full armor and he’s probably not putting all his strength in it, because she still has a face afterwards, but she falls.

She has never been hit like that before.  
Yes, of course, there have been slaps here and there, when she misbehaved or answered too slowly to something a Templar told her to do, obviously. And there has been caning, like it happens to everybody when they go a bit further and they earn themselves a proper punishment, but nothing like this.

Templars never hit her like this, all of a sudden, without warning. Templars tell you “ _Now I’m going to punish you because you did this and that”_ and then they do it, just to teach you where you did wrong and, yes, if you do it again (like when they stole cream from the pantry and were caught, on her first year, oh that was a mistake worth repeating) you get hit harder and for longer and it leaves those angry marks you are not allowed to see healed by magic. Templars bend you over and spank you once or twice, if they catch you doing something you shouldn't do, but it’s just a bit humiliating and it hurts, but not so much when they don’t do it on bare skin, after all. And when they do take the time to lift your skirt, it’s because you’ve done really wrong and you deserve it, and you know it. It’s for your own good and it’s because there are rules and rules are here to protect you all.

This is nothing like it.  
This is violent and harsh and there is no warning. This is fighting, except for the fact that she cannot fight back and she knows it.

She falls. Her head rings and she tastes blood in her mouth.

 

“Your friend was a rebel and a dangerous element, Dorothea. Are you like him?”

His voice never changes, never gets higher or louder. Everyone else just stays silent.

She tries to talk but her jaw hurts and she realizes there are tears on her eyes, ready to spill.   
She doesn’t want to cry in front of him. She stays down, crouched, while she breathes in and out, trying to find the way to reply without crying and without whimpering.

She takes a little too long.

An armored booth kicks her on the side. Not too hard, just enough to send her sprawling back on the floor.  
She hits the wooden bench with her head and she cries out.

“I asked you a question, mage. You’d better answer.”

She hears him but it’s hard, under her heart beating like crazy and her blood pumping wildly in her ears.   
She looks up and she knows. She knows she will remember the sight for the rest of her life.  
Knight Captain Cauldwell is towering over her, completely unfazed. His face doesn’t betray any emotion, he looks like a Tranquil, except for the eyes. His bright green eyes are sharp and burning and they look like they’re challenging her. He’s steel and leather and chainmail and muscle and bulk and she is small, so small at his feet.   
There are other feet around them: two Templars, one Enchanter, one Mage and one friend. No one of those moves.  
She answers.

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“What did you say? I can’t hear you girl, speak up.”

“I said I’m sorry, Knight Captain.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but that is not what I asked you, is it?”

She wants to get up, she feels humiliated and something in this position, being on the floor, half crouching and half lying with someone towering over her, makes her insides freeze and knot, and she can almost swear she hears a voice inside her head that screams to get up.  
She can’t. She stays there, takes a deep breath and replies.

“No Ser. I will not be like Arwell, Ser, I promise.”

She means it.  
She will not be made hollow. She will not. She will die first.  
She will be good, and she will obey and won’t cause trouble. But if it comes to choosing, she will die.

“Very well. Good girl. Hamons, pick her up and bring her down to the cells. A couple of days in isolation will do her good.”

She stops breathing and everyone around her seems to do the same.

When she feels something again, she is being dragged out of the laboratory, and she is walking down the corridor with legs that feel like wet paper.  
But she has a warning now.  
Templars always warn you when they punish you, and they do it for your own good.

It’s going to hurt.

 

Afterwards, they leave her alone.  
It’s not too bad, and it’s been quick, almost a blur. Now it hurts, like a hot current going through her, but she will heal. She feels a little nauseated and there is blood here and there, but once the bruises fade she will be fine.   
Pain is a strange relief. There was fear, and tension and the horror of not knowing and then pain had come, not blocked by shock or panic any longer, and it was… Well it was pain. Nothing extraordinary, nothing unbearable.

She feels strangely calm, now and she has felt like that for a while.

  
She is fourteen and she tries to sleep, curled into a ball on the floor. Sleep comes after a long struggle and she can’t remember her dreams, but she knows there was a banquet and someone was dancing with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started as a way to imagine what was like, for a Mage Trevelyan, to live in the Ostwick Circle.  
> You go through the game dialogue and find out you can come out with very different versions of it. One of them says it was a sedate Circle and even its fall was quiet. But what does that mean to be in a safe, quiet, sedate place where you are still a prisoner, still in the hands of your captors for the rest of your life?  
> How does the lesser evil feel?  
> This is my version of it. It will get grim and it will get a bit disturbing.


	2. Chapter 2

She is fifteen and word in the Circle says the Blight has hit Ferelden.   
She listens to tales of the Blight at night, when they sit by the fire in the mess hall. No one seems scared, not really, it’s like a nightmare out of an history book, like a tale to frighten children and old wives. 

They say the Blight will eat Ferelden.   
They say Darkspawn will crawl up from the Deep Roads and everything will be blood and death.   
They say the Wardens betrayed their promise.   
They say King Cailan is dead and people are fleeing, scattering at every corner of Thedas, away from Ferelden, away from the monsters.

She is not afraid of monsters.  
She knows she lives with them.

She is fifteen and she’s fascinated with Grey Wardens.   
They say they betrayed the King and are now almost all dead at Ostagar, but that’s just Fereldan Wardens and she wants to know more about the others.

They say Wardens recruit everyone who wants to serve, young or old, male, female, it doesn’t matter. 

They say Wardens take mages too. And Warden Mages are free.

 

“They also die a lot, Dora.” Harvine is very practical and usually very right. Grey Wardens don’t live long, it seems. And yet…

Her protective spells are exceptional, they say and she can heal for as long as her teachers can. She’s a prodigy, they say. It’s a very good thing that she chose to focus on non offensive magic, they say when they think she can’t hear them.

She is fifteen and starts to feel useless and restless. If given the chance, she would join the Wardens, now.

There is no chance.

  
  
  


She is fifteen when Nor goes through the Harrowing.  
She is worried and cannot stop pacing, measuring the the library from shelf to shelf, with a book in her hands, just to pretend to be doing anything that is not worrying and waiting.   
Enchanter Hayes says she has nothing to worry about: Norwood is strong, focused and clever and will come back whole and safe.   
She cannot help but worry. She doesn’t know what the Harrowing exactly is, no one does until it’s time to go through it. She knows it’s a test, a trial of some sort, and clearly demons are involved.

“What makes you think so?” 

Nelvin is actually trying to study, it seems, but doesn’t look bothered by her endless line of questions. He’s one of the older mages she likes best, even if he can be a little scary sometimes.  
She doesn’t know how old he is, every time she asks he changes his answer, and with him being an elf is not really easy to guess how much he’s playing with her.

“Because sometimes people turn into abominations and the Templars have to kill them…”  
She is terrified for Nor, she can’t help but think about Silvy, and her beautiful, peaceful face turned into a grotesque mass of flesh and bone. “People don’t turn into abomination without a demon being involved. Do they summon demons during the Harrowing? Is that why no one is allowed to know beforehand?”

“You know very well I can’t tell you, Dorothea… but I’ll tell you one thing, if you promise to be quiet about it.”

She stops, puts her book down on the table near Nelvin and sits beside him. She likes the way he talks to her, without treating her like a child just because she’s not gone through her Harrowing yet.

“Everyone said I was going to fail, when it was my turn. They were ready to fight me or turn me into a Tranquil. No one thought I was going to make it…”

“And then…?”

“And then I came out of… I did what I had to do and I did it against all odds and there was only one person in the circle who had believed in me all along and was there smiling at me: Hayes. Hayes knew.”

“Enchanter Hayes? He was at your Harrowing? But... then you cannot be eighty years old. You lied to me again!”

“Ah, you caught me… Or did you? Maybe I was brought to the Circle only when they caught me… Maybe I was an ancient apostate, running from Templars for decades before they dragged me here.”

“You were not!”

She punches him lightly on the shoulder, playfully, and he pretends to fall from the bench. 

“Ah! Your human strength is too much for this poor, old elven mage! I surrender!”

“Stop it, you idiot…” she laughs “Ser Alfric will think I’m beating you up for real!”

“If a Templar thinks you can beat me, he seriously needs to review his tactical skills…”

“I could punch you!”

“You are skin and bones, Dora…”  
  
“I’m strong! And I’m not all skin and bones!”

He looks at her and, in a moment, the air seems charged with something electric and everything changes. She feels her ears going red, even if she cannot see them.

“No, you’re not.”

 

He has green eyes so big one could swim in, and his voice is soft, but deep, like thunder.  
This close, he smells like fresh grass and candlewax.  
He catches a strand of her hair and brings it behind her ear.

“Anyway, you missed the point entirely, Dora…”

She likes the sound of her name, this close.

“Uh? I did?” 

“Yes. My fault. I get distracted easily as well by my wonderful voice…”

She can’t help but laugh at that, and she realizes she has forgotten all about the Harrowing and her worry, for a moment. She doesn’t feel guilty. Not too much anyway.

“The point is, Dora, that Enchanter Hayes is with Norwood. He trusts him, he said he was ready, and I trust Hayes. You have nothing to worry about.”

He drags her towards him in a hug, and she lets him. Her head on his shoulder feels incredibly right and she doesn’t want to let go.

When the sound of armored steps tells them Ser Alfric is coming, they let go, anyway.  
They pretend to be studying.  
When the Templar disappears around the corner once again, her heart is racing for more than one reason.

 

Nelvin was right. Norwood passes the Harrowing and even if he looks tired and a little bit shocked, he comes to hug her when it’s done.

They are fine. Everything is fine.

She goes to see Arwell, to give him the good news.  
The Tranquil replies that Norwood will be a good mage. He’s not happy, he is not able to be happy anymore, so she decides to be for him, even if it hurts.

  
  


***

 

She’s sixteen, and she’s biting her lover’s pointed ear, just a little nip, while her hands fumble with the fastening of his robe.    
He gasps and picks her up, holding her steadily against the wall, before molding his body to hers.   
When he pushes into her, he does it without hesitation. He knows her body like he knows his own, and she feels like she could burst into stars and flame. She wants to let it out, she wants to scream for him.

“Quiet… quiet, love.” He’s kissing her, with a little more force and urgency than usual, and the kiss eats away every sound.

They move together in waves, in the dark, hidden away like thieves. 

She dreams of him under starlight, naked and beautiful, his long limbs stretched and free, open for her to kiss, and look, and bite and touch. She dreams of waking up beside him, of sharing dreams and memories of the Fade while they doze off together again, content, peaceful, safe.

Instead she holds him tight, not caring about the cold stones of the storage room behind her back, taking all she can, driving him inside her again and again, telling with her body what she cannot speak, for fear of being heard, discovered.

She’s sixteen and all she risks is a smile, when they are not alone, and inside she can’t help but wonder what a scandal it would be if they knew, back home… 

 

_ Dear mother, -  _ she imagines writing in one of her letters -  
_ I am well and I hope you all are too. I am learning a lot of new things from my teachers, but not as much as I am learning from my elven lover. His name is Nelvin and he’s the son of a Dalish hunter. He has the most talented hands and he is not bad with magic too… _

 

Se feels silly and incredibly happy.  
She worries as well.  
She knows what they’re doing is forbidden, if not strictly by Chantry law, by the custom of the Tower. She knows what would happen if they were discovered and she doesn’t dare to think about it. Every time she does, her happiness gets tainted by fear, like a Blight on her heart, and she wonders what would have happened if the Maker had never cursed her with magic. If the Maker had not hated her and him so much.

She feels guilty, because she loves her curse. She feels proud and powerful, when she can cast freely, during lessons, she can hear the song of power coursing through her bones and her soul rejoices every time she is allowed to let it all out, free and glorious, unlike her love.

She knows it wouldn’t be easy for her and Nelvin, even if they weren’t mages, she is not that naive, she doesn’t dream about marriage and a life together, not with an elf, not for someone of her lineage. But it would be possible, at least, difficult, a challenge, but possible.

And yet, she could not wish for anything else than being born a mage.  
She’s proud of it. She loves it. She wonders what she would choose if there was the chance: her magic or her love.  
She doesn’t dwell on it, it’s painful, and it makes her feel guilty, uneasy.

But the Hero of Ferelden was a mage. A Grey Warden elven Mage, they say. They say she defeated the Archdemon and saved everyone. There are other rumors about her and the new King of Ferelden as well.

She dreams of heroes and a world where it’s possibile to be a mage, to be loved, to save everyone at the same time.

At night, when everyone is asleep, she counts the steps of the patrol in the corridors, tries to imagine herself sneaking out, waiting until it’s safe and then running down to Nelvin’s floor, to his doorstep. But the corridor is never empty, and sometimes, at night, the patrol pauses just outside her door, for a second, and she stops breathing.  
They never enter, not in her room.  
But the stone carries and she knows.

  
  


***

 

She’s seventeen when she goes through her Harrowing.

The night before, she prays. She is scared, but she knows she is ready, she knows she is strong, she is  _ resolute _ , Hayes says.  
They are kind in the Ostwick Circle, they give a warning. It’s not official, but it happens and apprentices know when the Harrowing is coming. She doesn’t know if it will be in the morning or sooner, but she knows it’s time.

She prays the Maker, and she does it out loud.

_ O Maker, hear my cry:  
_ _ Guide me through the blackest nights. _

She is not a good Andrastian, she knows that, but she wants to believe the Maker doesn’t hate her.

_ Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked.  
_ _ Make me to rest in the warmest places.  _

The warmest place she knows is in Nelvin’s arms, those arms that are her sin and her disobedience.

__ O Creator, see me kneel:  
__ For I walk only where You would bid me.  
_ Stand only in places You have blessed.  
_ __ Sing only the words You place in my throat. 

She knows it’s not true, she strays. She tries, she has always tried, but she fails. She hopes the Maker will forgive her.

__ My Maker, know my heart:  
__ Take from me a life of sorrow.  
_ Lift me from a world of pain.  
_ __ Judge me worthy of Your endless pride.

If the Maker could know her heart, if only He would show it to her, so that she too could know. Because sorrow is the truth of every life, but she doesn’t want to live in pain, she doesn’t want to live in regrets and caged. She wants to be worthy of pride.

__ My Creator, judge me whole:  
__ Find me well within Your grace.  
_ Touch me with fire that I be cleansed.  
_ __ Tell me I have sung to Your approval.

If only there could be a sign that all this was his design, his will, that all she has done and witnessed and felt was as it was meant to be.

__ O Maker, hear my cry:  
__ Seat me by Your side in death.  
_ Make me one within Your glory.  
_ __ And let the world once more see Your favor.

A voice from the corridor joins with her, and she is startled.  
Brenden, coming closer, his steps in rhythm with the prayer he’s now saying with her.  
For a moment, it’s beautiful, and it’s whole, and she feels loved and safe.

_ For You are the fire at the heart of the world,  
_ _ And comfort is only Yours to give. _

 

“Rest well, Dorothea. Maker be with you.”

  
  
  


She’s seventeen when they give her lyrium and push her into the Fade, alone and without knowing what awaits her.

She knows the Fade, she visits every night, in her sleep, but not like this.  
When they make her drink, she doesn’t fly into the dream realm, she falls into it, and she knows she won’t be able to wake up on her own, non until… not until something happens.  
She doesn’t know what it’s supposed to happen, what is she supposed to do.

She walks.  
She turns.  
She’s dancing.

There is a ball, it’s grand and glorious and filled with nobles and music, all is gold and glitter, where a moment before it was just a strange path in a barren forest.

She dances, from arm to arm, from one knight to the other, all are praising her beauty, her valor, her strength and her grace. She’s the wonder of Ostwick, the mage… no, the Warden, a Grey Warden mage, with a blue and silver dress that feels protective like armor and fluent like silk. She is respected. She is free.

One knight after the other, they smile and they dance.  
She forgets it’s the Fade, she lets herself enjoy the moment. It’s a triumph of freedom, where she can choose to be whoever she wants: a hero, a savior, a protector, a mage, a lady, a healer, a lover.

At every turn of the dance the court changes, more guests take form and some of them have a mask on their face, others dress like savages from the Wilds, or Antivan dignitaries, others look like Tevinter Magisters and there are Elves and Dwarfs drinking and dancing, and mages, here and there, from the Circle, familiar faces she cannot quite place, laughing. It’s perfect.

And she is the center of it all. She made it.

The music changes and a new knight takes her hand and it’s a slow, sensuous dance, one she can master perfectly even if she never knew the steps. The rhythm guides her and her new partner is young and handsome, a mage, like her.

She knows him. And yet she doesn’t.

 

“Arwell?” 

Her heart feels like it’s being squeezed from the inside when he smiles.

“Dora... Look at you! You’re gorgeous. I’m so happy I found you…”

Happy. He looks happy. He hasn’t looked happy in years.

 

The music makes them move without effort and the dance is scandalous, but no one seems to object, no one can dance it like they can.

“You are a marvel, Dora, you know that, yes? No one but you could find me in here, hidden away… And yet you did. You can do whatever you want, my beautiful friend. Look at the woman you have become.”

In his eyes she can see herself. She is a woman, not a girl anymore, it’s all there already and it’s not just a question of appearance. She can be strong, she can save them, she can fulfill her purpose.  
She is ready.

“Yes. You always knew, didn’t you? You were made for something bigger, something more than just this. Now, together, we can reach for it, we can fulfill your destiny.”

“What the Maker always intended for me.”

“What he always had in store, yes. You don’t have to choose, you don’t have to bow to their rules. You are so much more than that…”

Arwel moves her, slowly, to the side and his wicked smile is sweet and languid. She has missed it so much.

 

“But how can it be? I am a mage…”

“And a faithful believer. And a sweet lover. You don’t have to choose, my dear. Those are their limitations, not meant for someone like you. You just have to trust yourself, and the day will come when you’ll be able to be all this, everything you always wanted, everything you always knew you could be.”

 

She smiles, and it feels incredible. It feels whole and perfect. Arwell is as handsome and as bold as she remembered him, before they turned him into…

She stumbles.

Tranquil.

Arwell is Tranquil. Arwell cannot be here, now, in… The Fade.

This is her Harrowing. 

No one told her what to expect and now she understands why. No one could have.

 

“Ah. I see.”  
Arwell stops. They are not dancing anymore, no one is. While she looks at them, all the glittering and golden guests, they start to disappear, to fade.

“You’re not him. You cannot be him.”

“You caught up quicker than I thought… I’m impressed.”

“You’re a demon.”

“I’m a friend.”

She laughs, she is scared and she feels trapped, but she laughs.  
“Sure you are. Aren’t demons usually so friendly, after all?”

“To be honest” he replies, “we try to be. But you all act so outraged and terrified and tend to attack on sight…”  A trace of her friend’s wicked sense of humor is there and it hurts.

“I’m not attacking you now.” Something inside of her is telling her that’s exactly the problem: she should be.

“No, indeed. And so we’re talking. Isn’t it much better than fighting?”

 

She knows it’s wrong, she knows it’s dangerous, but she doesn’t want to fight him. She wants to run, she wants to go back to the Tower, she wants to come out of this alive…

“You will. You were meant to be. You won’t fail this stupid proving… Harrowing… Meant for minds so much weaker, narrow, restricted to their concepts of dichotomy between what is done and what must never be.”

She feels like the demon is looking right through her. She doesn’t like it.  
“Please stop. If we must talk, we’ll talk, but can you please stop looking… like him?”

Arwell’s face looks hurt, for a second, and then is not there anymore.  
It’s her father.

“Is this better?”

She screams.  
She hasn’t seen her father in six years and it hurts.

“NO!”

She steps back.  
She knows it’s the Fade, she knows nothing is real here and everything can be, but she can’t think or find reason in what is in front of her.  
It’s her father and he looks at her with a tender smile and his head slightly to the side, like he did when she was a kid and could sing and entire song for him, with all the words just right and he was so proud of his girl, so proper and so talented, with the voice of a little bird.

“Too much? Ah you are a difficult one, my dear, and I guess it’s just right, I shouldn’t have expected anything else from you. I think this will help us move along…”

Suddenly he’s there, colossal and wrong, and, finally, true. 

A demon.

His skin is the pale blue of a lighting storm and his claws are razor sharp, but what really does it for her are his eyes. There are too many of them, on a gigantic spiked head, too many eyes and all burning with a bright light. Those are clever eyes, not the eyes of a mindless monster or a beast. She even thinks she can see a hint of amusement, for an instant, but then fear takes her breath away and she steps back, and back, and turns to run away.

“Dora, no!”  
The demon shouts at her, and she can hear genuine concern in his voice.

She stops in mid turn, just in time to catch herself before falling. There is a pit, just behind her, and the void of the fade, green and grey, an endless fall, just a breath away from her feet.  
It’s the Fade, all around her, below, like islands of dreams lost, and above, high in what should be the sky… It’s black.  
Black pinnacles and walls, high as mountains and yet so small, in the distance. They look close enough to touch, when she doesn’t look directly, close enough that a jump would do to reach them. But it’s a lie, it’s a dream and it’s the Black City.

“Dora, look at me. There is nothing to fear.”

She doesn’t want to open her eyes - she doesn’t even remember when she closed them - but she does, slowly. The demon is reaching for her, a giant claw offered in welcome. It’s grotesque and yet somehow it feels alluring.  
She doesn’t take the hand, but she gets closer. The demon doesn’t attack.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Dora. I want to help you.”

She believes him.

“Right now, in the tower, they are trying to decide if you’re already too far gone, you know that, right?”

She doesn’t. She has seen the Templars all around the Harrowing chalice, a circle of them, armed and ready, but surely…

“One of them is there to kill you, Dorothea. If you come out of the Fade an Abomination, he will cut through you without a thought. But if you take too long, if they deem you lost in the Fade or prey to its dwellers… they will kill you while you still sleep.”

She wants to call the demon a liar, but she can’t.

“We have to go, now. We have to get out, together, Dora. We can do it, me and you. I could not do it alone, and with another mage… oh, they would find me out in a second, but with you? You’d be able to hide me, I’m sure of it. You can protect me, carry me inside you… I’ve been waiting for you for so long, Dorothea…”

He comes closer, and she feels the ground shaking at every step. Maybe she’s gone beyond terrified, because she suddenly feels calm, empty, when the demon reaches and finally touches her. It’s gentler than she could have ever expected and those terrible claws graze her skin like a caress, light and intimate and not at all unpleasant.

He smells like thunderstorm and praises, like destiny and recognition in the air before it starts to rain.   
She knows what he is now.

“I have to go, now.”

“Yes. Time is running out. We will do so much, together, you’ll see.”

He moves to take her hand in his clawed one and she snatches it away before he can even touch it.

“Dora, there’s nothing to fear. I’m with you, now, I know you can do it. I want to help you.”

 

And that’s what it takes for her to act.  
She knows him. It. She knows it even better, now that she’s met him.

Her Pride.

She fights fire with fire, but it’s all she has.

 

Her barrier comes up, swiftly, strong has it’s never been before, and punches the demon away, as it explodes.

“I don’t need your help.”

 

The demon roars and charges.  
A new barrier is up and she readies a bolt in her hands.  
It’s all she can do, It’s all she has.   
She fights Pride with pride, with lightning and with stubbornness. 

He’s an unstoppable force. She’s an unmovable object.  
They collide.

And she wakes up.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for abuse and implied rape.

She’s eighteen and she forgot how to pray.   
She can’t find it in her anymore.

She grew up with a faith given to her with mother’s milk, she always believed the Maker had a song for her to sing, even when it seemed impossible, even when her future had been snatched away, she always believed. She hoped.  
Now she doesn’t dare to hope anymore. Now she knows what she felt was just an illusion, a Pride dream, a demon’s call, and the city in the sky was Black.

The demon’s words still ring true, his concern and care genuine, his call gives her pangs of regret and longing.  
She expects to feel guilty about it, but it doesn’t happen.  
She visits the chapel and looks at the statue of Andraste there, terrible and beautiful, a warrior, a bulwark. She only feels bitter, resentful.

She never prays anymore.

 

She’s a healer now, she’s a prodigy and a full entitled member of the Circle of Magi.   
She gets out, sometimes, escorted, obviously, by Templars and at least another Senior Mage, but she gets to see Ostwick again.

They send her to the house of a merchant, where a woman is suffering from an endless labour that is killing her and the baby.  
The merchant’s eyes are haunted, red, he hasn’t slept in days.   
The wife, covered in sweat and exhausted, doesn’t seem to have the force to move anymore, she just lies there, and barely breathes.

The Healer with her does most of the job, she is truly a miracle worker and puts things in motion as soon as they enter the room.

Afterwards, when the baby is out, a dead silence to welcome him when his eyes don’t open and his chest doesn’t rise, it’s her turn.  
She breathes for him, she pushes healing magic into him from his small mouth, she reaches his heart and for a moment she can feel it on the edge of life and death.  
She chooses for him.

They go back to the Tower and she feels exhilarated, tired beyond measure, but high with the glorious feeling of healing and saving and fighting for someone’s life.

There is blood on her robe, she wants to have a bath and then celebrate, but it doesn’t happen.  
Knight Captain Cauldwell’s eyes go wide when he sees them coming back, just when they’re turning into the second corridor, headed to the bath chamber.

The Purge is violent and unnecessary and it knocks her and Villa out for a second, sending them down on the floor, with the few things she had gathered for her bath scattering on the ground. A soap bar, a towel, a comb.  
When she’s able to understand what’s happening again, she’s almost dangling in Cauldwell’s grasp, her feet can barely touch the ground and the collar of her robe is twisted too tight around her throat, she has trouble breathing.

“What is THIS?”

She doesn’t know what he means, she cannot think of something she could have done to make him so angry.

Villa is slowly getting up, her hands open in a peaceful gesture, three more Templars are coming from the southern stairway.

“Knight Captain, please. You’re strangling her.”  
Villa’s tone is low and calm, she doesn’t raise her voice to the Templar, she knows how the game is played and she’s playing carefully.

“Maybe I  _ should  _ strangle her. Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll do. The punishment for Blood Magic is death, after all.”

Blood Magic? She has a hard time thinking, but she thinks she misheard.  
They went out to save a mother and her baby, they healed and delivered, there was no blood magic, she doesn't even know… But there is blood. Blood all over her robe.  
  


The misunderstanding takes two Senior Enchanters, three Templars and one visit to the First Enchanter to be resolved.  
They clear her of the charge of having brought back blood on her clothes to perform blood magic in the baths. It takes a while to convince Knight Captain Cauldwell that no magic can be performed that way and yet avoid giving him the idea that they know more about Blood Magic than they should. It’s a fine line, but eventually, when Knight Commander Vivier intervenes, they let her go.

With a warning.  
And the warning takes form of a punishment, of course.  
How else can she learn, otherwise?

  
The worse part, she thinks, it’s the first one, when they strip her from her robe in the bath chamber and they make her stand there, naked, while they burn it.  
Is not like she grew up with much privacy, and the Templars always stand guard in the baths, but this is different. It's not being naked in front of them, it's being made to stand there, it's the absence of a choice.  
She hates to feel their eyes on her and she refuses to cower and crouch like she has something to hide. So she stands, her arms at her sides, her back straight, and she just does what they tell her.

First they burn the robe, then they make her clean the mess that made.  
Then it’s turn for her to be cleaned and scrubbed raw with a brush.  
She has blood in her hair, the tip of her braid, mostly, so they decide to cut it all away.  
It’s the most practical solution.  
She feels silly when she notices tears prickling on the back of her eyes, she feels stupid and vain and if she could still pray she would probably ask the Maker forgiveness for her vanity.  
She has to sweep the floor, where her hair has fallen. It looks like straw, pale yellow straw on the dark grey stone of the bath chamber.

Finally, they make her bend over a table, and she knows Knight Captain Cauldwell has left the room to go and fetch his cane.  
It’s uncomfortable and humiliating and she feels like it’s too much for too little.  
They never did this before, not like this, not to her. But she knows it happens.

She is stretched, her belly rubs against the uneven surface of the wood, her feet can touch the floor, but to rest down comfortably she has to keep her ass in the air and she really, really doesn’t want to do that. She bends her legs, lets her weight rest on the table, and tries to become as small as she can.  
A templar comes in front of her to hold her arms and she doesn't want to see who he is.

When the first blow comes, it hurts and it’s comforting. It’s something known and familiar and it helps taking her mind away from all the rest.

She counts to twenty, out loud, like you do.

The Templar in front of her leaves and she hears footsteps all around her.  
Knight Captain Cauldwell is still breathing heavily behind her, so she doesn’t dare to get up.

“You think you’re so precious, don’t you, Trevelyan?”

He never used her family name, before. She knows she is not supposed to answer.

“You think you’re safe, behind your noble house and your connections, don’t you? The little filthy family secret, hidden away in the tower, can do what she wants.”

Safe. She thinks a lot of things, but none of them is that.  
He moves, behind her, his boots touch the back of her feet. 

“You think your mother’s letters to the Knight Commander can get you out of everything, and your secrets are safe, that you can do what you like, that we don’t see…”

It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t. She has done nothing wrong and her mother only writes to her… she talks about her brother's upcoming wedding, about her father’s health and about how much she misses her.

“You think you’re so clever, the little noble spawn with powerful magic can do whatever she pleases. Rules are for the others, aren’t they? You are free to take an elf lover and no one will notice or do anything, because you’re better than everyone else, aren’t you?”

She feels her blood become a glacier, a nd she doesn’t even have the time to be surprised when a hand grips her by what’s left of her hair and bends her back in a sharp, painful movement.  
  


“Consider this your wake up call, Trevelyan.” he bangs her face down on the table and moves behind her. “You are not special.”

 

The only thing that she can be thankful for is that it’s fast.  
Painful, humiliating, but fast.

He leaves, afterwards, and she stays there, on the table, for what seems like ages.  
She cries.  
Then she gets up, she washes herself. Repeatedly.  
She knows she is lucky. There is no chance she could get pregnant from what he just did to her. It’s a good thing. Another thing to be grateful for. A narrow escape, at that.

She gets the message.

  
  


She’s eighteen and ending things with Nelvin hurts, but not as much as she expected.  
She has to, it’s not her choice.    
Nelvin agrees. Sort of.   
They cannot give that much power to the Templars, it’s blackmail material, it’s irresponsible and dangerous.  
They were living on borrowed time, anyway.   
They part amicably and it’s soft, almost sweet. She thinks she’ll always love him, somehow, but it’s not a raw, burning wound. It feels more like mourning.  
She doesn’t even miss him too much, after all things don’t change drastically. They still see each other every day, spend time together, support each other and get on each other nerves. They just never share a dark storage room together again, they never kiss again, and she realizes she doesn’t feel the loss of that. She’s fine.

 

Her brother gets married.  
Two apprentices pass their Harrowing and one fails.  
Summer comes and goes and the winter brings heavy snow.  
One of the older Templars dies and they mourn.  
Harvine cries on her shoulder after she gets punished.

  
She’s fine.

  
  


***

  
  


She is twenty and it’s been raining for days. The sky is pouring rivers on them and it doesn’t seem to show any sign that it will stop anytime soon.  
She feels restless, aching for something she doesn’t even recognize, but thunder resonates inside her like it’s made of lyrium and she hears it’s song.

The rain is dull and cold, but every time the storm hits the tower, she wakes up, she feels frightened, she feels excited, she waits for the next lightning in the sky and hears the song.  
She gets out, hours before the morning and it’s freezing cold, loud, dark and her skin his all goosebumps and shivers. She feels awake, alive, alert. She wants to scream, dance, fight, fuck, she feels electric.

She’s soaking wet just after two steps outside the porch, the tower is asleep and the night patrol is tired, ready to be relieved. No one stops her when she steps outside, in the inner courtyard.

She feels the fabric of her robe, heavy with water, dragging her down, but she’s uplifted at every loud thunderclap, at every white hot spark that lights the sky, she feels like she’s flying.  
She tears the fabric down, frantically, like it’s weighing her down, like it’s what is stopping her from leaping into the night sky, and she isn’t cold anymore. The rain tastes like a seastorm, she can practically feel the raging of the tide in the distance, beyond the hills. She is filled to the brim with too much energy, with power without purpose, and she wants to just let it go, to get it all out, just to prove she can. So she does. 

Lightning explodes from her, without a staff, without a thought, she becomes the thunder, energy so sharp and magnificent she wants to cry.  
She feels beautiful, she feels right and she feels like she can do anything with that power: kill or protect, heal or cage, she is fury and she is mercy. She is free.

She is dreaming.

 

“Come out.”  
Her voice is calm, sure. This is not the first time it happens, it won’t be the last. She knows him now.

A crack of thunder, not louder than the others, makes the ground tremble, and then it falls into a rhythm, into steps.  
She turns around and he’s there, just like he was the first time: wrong and colossal, perfect and horrible at the same time.

“It’s been a long time, my sweet spark… Almost too long.” his teeth are bare and shining. His version of a smile.

“And here I was enjoying a moment by myself…” 

“I know, I know, I’m always intruding in your private moments, this one, the Harrowing. It’s almost like I care about you.”

“Go away. I don’t want to fight and I don’t like your chances right now, anyway.” 

She knows it’s dangerous. She knows she’s always walking a very fine line with the demon, her demon, and if she doesn’t put a stop to it, a firm one, sooner or later she will make a mistake. But for now she feels safe, she feels in control and she feels lonely and powerful.    
Of course, it’ìs just what the demon wants. She knows that as well, but it’s not enough to make her get away.

“Who says I’m here to fight, Dora?”

“And what are you here for?”

The Demon gets closer, his stride is long and it just takes a few steps, but he doesn’t get to her yet. The rain is still falling, like a solid curtain of cold and the water bounces off the demon’s features in drops, splashes, rivulets falling down spikes and ridges.  
He drops to his knees in front of her.

“For you.”

It’s so absurd that she can barely register the action and, before she can think about it, she is getting closer to see. Surely it’s not… and yet.    
A Pride demon is kneeling in front of her. Just another night in the Fade.

“I’ve waited for you, I’ve made myself stronger, for you, and every time you deny me I grow more resolute, more powerful. And now I’m here for you, and I can show you there is nothing I wouldn’t do to get you to take me, to accept my help, Dorothea.”

He’s beautiful, absolutely glorious and terrifying, and he’s humiliating himself for her, just for her.

“Let me show you what we can do together. Let me show you what you truly need. You’ll never be safer than in my arms, and I will never be stronger than inside you, my Dora, my spark, my everything.”

  
She gets close enough to touch, and more. She’s closer than she ever dared to get: just a thought and he could be crushing her in his arms, between his knees, biting her head off with his fangs, but she doesn’t feel threatened, she feels safe and exhilarated.  
He’s offering what he always did, the first time, and the one after that, and the third. She knows it’s all he has to offer, but she wants it so desperately, and for a creature like him to lower himself to ask, and ask again and beg, on his knees to her, like she’s so much more than… Oh.

She breathes in. Then out. 

She doesn’t retreat, but she sees, now. Not very hard to see, to be honest, not his most articulated scheme. It’s her pride he’s feeding, this time, using himself as bait.  
Itself. _It_. Demon.  
Not her friend.  
There are no friends in the Fade.

 

“My friend…” she says, and she knows it should feel less painful to lie to him (it) like this, to use him (it) like this. He is warm, all around her, buzzing with energy and life, so real, so close.  
She feels the pull, the call. She can linger just a little while longer.  
She knows she could touch him (it) now and he would allow it.  
She could explore his form and slide her fingers around his edges, cut herself with his spikes and climb him (it!), bite his hide, and it would taste like metal, like blood and knives and the air before the storm. She could let him slide his talons on her skin and every tear would feel like a kiss, every touch like a cry, she could abandon herself in his (its) arms and let him take her, enter her, split her open and get her skin and her soul to sing for him and they would be…

She sighs. 

She knows she has gone too far, this time. Almost to the point of falling.  
She opens her eyes and he’s all over her, almost inside her, he almost is her.

Almost.

With a smile, a sad one, she pushes away, from him and from the Fade.

 

She wakes up.

It’s still raining.

She cries and doesn’t sleep for days.

Portrait of Dora during the dream scene in this chapter done by the amazing Giulia - Kurosmind 


	4. Chapter 4

She’s twenty one, and she is training harder than she ever has before.

Enchanter Hayes pushes her, and pushes her and she climbs higher every time. She knows she can do more, she wants to do more, be more.  
She is not just a healer, now, she is a protector, furious and solid. A bulwark of magic and will, she is spirit and storm.

Lighting comes to her easily, but controlling it is another matter. Shaping her power is hard, her frustration pulls her to unpredictable peaks and taming it in takes all her energy and will.  
Her resolve is stronger too. She has made a lesson of her dreams, of her mistakes and she is steady now or she will be, day by day.

Hayes follows her every step of the way. The Enchanter is a wall, relentless, solid, her stronghold. She feels like she has never loved someone more than him and never hated anyone so fiercely.

Sometimes, when they talk, when he walks her through some difficult step of magical theory, and they sit together, she can feel his magic like a living thing, so close to her. It feels like a wave of boiling water, ready to burn and crash, filled to the brim with power and yet perfectly content, controlled.

The old man, with his steel grey beard and large callused hands, the same one that complains about his bones aching and his need of a staff for more than just casting nowadays, is a calm, contained, astonishing force of destruction domesticated by willpower alone.  
He knows she knows. He smiles, and it’s not an innocent smile, but it’s sweet.

When she’s too stubborn, when she complains, when she makes him angry, he doesn’t raise his voice, not like he did when she was just an apprentice, a child, and he scared her so much with the angry tone in his scoldings. Now he just pushes his magic against hers, just a little shove, a angry one or a firm one, just to let her know. And it’s enough. It feels like a punch, a slap a hug and a kiss at the same time. It’s raw and it’s wonderful and it works very well. Every time. She learns to do it too, but he laughs at her when she tries it at him.

That man, her teacher, her mentor, could take the tower and explode it with a thought. And yet he teaches children to center their magic, he guides apprentices in the path towards their Harrowing, he shares his knowledge and his wisdom with frustrated young mages like her.  
It makes her proud to be his student and his friend, but sometimes it makes her incredibly sad as well.

When Templars shout at him, when they hit him or call him an old fool, she feels hot flames of rage inside her, she feels the humiliation he doesn’t let surface, she feels it and she hates it.

 

She is twenty one when she comes to his study, one evening, to find him crouched on the floor, his lips red with blood and his staff broken on the floor.

Enchanter Hayes sometimes runs out of gentle patience and wisdom.

The Templars are there to help him find humility again.

The broken ribs are like a signature: Cauldwell likes to kick a fallen mage, after all, and in Ostwick Tower everyone learns soon not to deny the Knight Captain his little pleasures.

She heals him, carefully and thoroughly, then she holds him and they don’t speak, there is no need.   
There's a bleak sadness in his eyes, that is horrible to watch. She knows he’s not sorry for himself, she knows it’s not his own life he hates, right now, but hers, her years to come, her power going to waste, her potential squandered, her promise lost.

It’s a circuit of terrible awareness, a small tragedy that feeds itself.  
They hold each other, they hold on to each other.

  
  


She is twenty one and she reads with hands that tremble around the parchment. Between a letter from her mother and one from her brother (she has a nephew!) she has hidden a different sort of message altogether.

 

_“...But if the Maker blamed magic for the magisters’ actions in the Black City, why would He still gift us with it? The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker…”_

 

She reads and at every line she feels tears bubbling behind her eyes, hot and threatening to spill. Her whole body shivers as she goes on, every word a punch, every paragraph resonating with something inside her she thought was dying and too weak to fight.

She reads, and she knows they are lucky in Ostwick, that their Circle is a safe place and their Tower a sanctuary and not simply a prison. But she always knew other circles were not like that, she listened to Reanna when she told them about Kinlock, and she heard about what they said about Kirkwall. Kirkwall, just a three days ride from Ostwick. Kirkwall, where she could have ended up if she had been born just a few miles west. Kirkwall, where Tranquils were made every day.

She reads and reads again and she feels nauseated and guilty, in her safety, in her peace. In their tower, where punishment rarely comes unwarranted and Templars often smile and stop to talk to mages, where the threat of Tranquillity is not used lightly, where abuse can be avoided if one is not too reckless or terribly unlucky, where at the end of the day everyone can go to bed without being afraid for their lives, in this tower they are selfish and blind.  
What if she can live in relative safety and peace? Should she forget about what happens elsewhere? Should she not wish for every mage in Thedas to aim for a better life, a better fate? Should she turn a blind eye just because she doesn’t suffer?   
She reads the words in the manifesto, over and over, and she feels hopeful and ashamed.

She makes copies.

  


***

  


She’s twenty two when she has to stop in the middle of a corridor, she almost stumbles, then catches herself, a sense of dread and terrible awareness washes over her. She feels it, she knows everyone else can feel it, every mage in the tower shivers and stops.  
It’s like a ripple through the Fade, one they can sense while awake, while preparing for the evening meal, finishing the day’s lessons, walking through the corridors, suddenly there is a change and everyone of them stops.  
It’s fear, so much fear and rage, echoing from mage to mage, traveling the distance, mile to mile, through a connection that shouldn’t be there but is, and no one of them knows why.

That night they go to sleep whispering between themselves, trying to understand, trying to make sense of it, and everyone is restless, confused, uneasy.   
The Templars notice and suspicion grows.

It takes two days for news to come, but when they do it’s chaos.

Kirkwall.

The Chantry in Kirkwall was blown up.

By a mage.

No, by mages. The Circle mages.

No by rebel mages outside the Circle.

No a single one.

No, by Qunari.

The Qunari forces attacked Kirkwall again.

Qunari mages blew up the Chantry.

The Champion of Kirkwall blew up the Chantry and killed everyone.

Tevinter. It was Tevinter.

No, Knight Commander Meredith went crazy and attacked the Circle.

 

The Rite of Annulment.

The Rite of Annulment.

The Rite of Annulment.

 

Kirkwall Circle is no more.  
The Templars exercised the Rite of Annulment.

They are all dead.

 

She feels something gripping at her insides, her heart cannot beat, her breath refuses to fill her chest, she tries, she tries but it gets harder and harder.  
Ser Brenden puts a hand over her mouth. She trashes. She tries to summon lightning but a cold wind washes over her. She passes out.

When she wakes up, ser Brenden is beside her. They are in the library, there are others around her, some of them sitting, some standing, some are talking, some arguing loudly, one of the Chantry sisters is praying. The Templars move between them.  
Brenden helps her sit up, propped against a shelf.  
He looks like he always does, a little too rigid and composed, serious, and usually she knows under that stern look there’s a kind word, a smile, a gentle helping hand. This time it all seems drowned by worry.

She looks at him and asks without speaking.

“You were in shock, Dorothea. You were breathing too fast and you were starting to lose control. I had to stop you before you hurt yourself.”

And everyone else. She doesn’t need to hear him say it, she knows.  
A good mage never loses control like that. She is grateful it was Brenden to notice first. Many others among the Ostwick Templars would have not cared for her safety first and she could be dead now, many of them would have just seen a mage going crazy.

It takes a moment, but then it all comes back at her.  
The Rite of Annulment. Kirkwall. The Chantry.  
She feels boneless, empty.

She cannot escape, she cannot stand, she has no one else there, so throws herself into the Templar’s arms and cries.  
He's not much older than her brother, not much older than she is, he's not her friend, not her kin, but he's there and doesn't turn away. He holds her.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, I prefer to over-warn and be safe, so:  
> warning for implied abuse, rape and gaslighting.

She’s twenty three when Harvine storms through the laboratory.   
Formari Selvis turns around, disturbed by the interruption of his alchemical brewing and gives Dorothea a look that is even less friendly than usual.   
She grabs Harvine by the arm and drags her outside, to the empty storage room on the other side of the corridor.

“I’m going crazy, Dora, I swear! I’ll claw her eyes out and throw them in the face of her precious Templars, I tell you!”

She doesn’t need to ask who she’s talking about. Harvine and Senior Enchanter Lydia are always arguing these days, more and more so at every piece of news that comes from outside the walls.   
  


They are not permitted to leave the Tower anymore, not under any circumstance, and while they stay secluded, protected, the world outside slowly falls into chaos.  
  
Something has shifted in the paradigm. The Templars are not caring for them anymore, they are guarding them, and even if things don’t change, not much anyway, she feels like the whole Tower now sits on a slope and everything is slowly rolling away.

  
Some things have actually changed, practical things, understandable things.   
The doors are gone.    
She finds it difficult, at first, to fall asleep with nothing to shield her room from the cold air of the corridors, from the lanterns of patrols coming and going, but after a while she adjusts. They all do.    
Templars enter her room, they check, they touch, like they always did. It’s not really different, she simply was used to that wooden illusion of privacy, to the lie of a confined space she could call her own. When they came and woke her, made her obey to commands, they entered her space, her illusion of a safe haven.    
Now there is no such a thing anymore. The illusion is gone.   
It was a lie, anyway and she’s almost glad to see it gone.   
It takes a while to get used to it, but eventually she does.   
  
Harvine finds it hard to adjust. Harvine has always had a hard time coping with life in the Tower as it was before, and the changes now pull at the edge of her control.    
Harvine is fury and indignation and Enchanter Lydia is a wall of ice. Devout student and revered teacher bite each other off loudly and bitterly every day.

“I asked her to talk to the First Enchanter and you know what she said? She _shrugged_ , the bitch, and told me the First Enchanter had already talked to the Circle Seniors and agreed that there was nothing we could do but wait…  _ Wait _ ! Wait to be slaughtered, wait to be made Tranquil, wait for that old disgusting pig to…”

She grips her friend in a fierce hug and holds her.    
She wishes she could heal her fury, her fear and her frustration away, like she does with the angry welts of a punishment, but she knows she couldn’t. She knows she wouldn’t.   
Harvine is not sick, Harvine is not crazy, not more than everyone of them is. She just can’t stand all of it anymore. This is not something she can be protected from.   
  
Dora wishes she could make it all go away all the same, like she cures injuries and aches, like she did for Harvine that time she came to her crying, with blood on her smalls and terror on her face, what was left of the beginning of a life escaping her body. She had helped, then, learned how to guide her body through it, and then had cleaned her off in secret, and lulled her to sleep, slowly, carefully, until there were no more tears, no more shivers.    
Back then she had just wished she could make her friend forget. Now she thinks the same, for a moment and then she is horrified by the thought.   
Forget, heal, forsake, be quiet and safe. Be Tranquil.   
  


Some of them are talking, secretly, cautiously, and trying to form a plan of action. She knows Harvine has one already, but it’s madness and would get them all killed.   
Action is ill advised when everything around them is frozen and fragile. It could all break and shatter them all.  
  
They are a quiet Circle, they are a safe Circle and their fame for loyalty and honorable servitude is well deserved. The Chantry will protect them. For a while. She hopes.  
  


They dissolve the College of Enchanters a few days later.  
  


She is twenty three and the nights are impossibly long.   
The stone carries, and armored steps sound closer and louder. Sometimes they stop in front of her room, sometimes they don’t.    
She is not scared anymore, she just wants to sleep.   
They don’t let them sleep.

Sometimes, at night, all they have gets upturned, searched, broken.    
Sometimes they get dragged in the mess hall, in groups, and kept there for hours, until the sky outside turns pale. No one says anything, no one gets asked anything, they just make them stand there.    
Sometimes, in the morning, mages are missing from the mess hall. Some of them come back, days later, some don’t, and everyone pretends nothing happens.

  
She finds it hard to pretend, but everyone seems determined to do so, and she realizes it’s the best course of action. What would they get from complaining?    
She does it anyway.    
She goes to Senior Enchanter Lydia, since the First Enchanter has just left for the great Enchanters Conclave at White Spire, and complains.    
Templars are summoned, other mages too and they tell her nothing happened.    
She has an overactive imagination and just wants to play victim. She is a spoiled brat.

For a moment, there, she thinks she’s going crazy.

Everyone acts like nothing happens, and truly it’s easier that way, even if it eats her away from the inside. It’s easier to say she's just tired, that she fell or that she must have sleepwalked. Everyone is sympathetic, that way, when she spots a bruise or looks frightened by every small noise.

She fails to behave properly, when Norwood goes missing and she enquires about it, so she gets a special visit in the night.   
At first she thinks it’s nothing more than what is to be expected and she stills, goes quiet, ready to comply, as you do.   
It’s only when the second Templar enters her room that she realizes something is different, something is about to happen. The stone carries, even more now that there are no doors and she only ever witnessed with her ears, before, hearing it happen in someone else’s room.   
  
Three Templars come for her and they make her stand, follow, walk. 

She doesn’t resist, but they find a way to force her anyway. They have to, it’s a matter of principle and it serves the purpose well. 

She must not forget that she is not doing anything of her own will. That there is not such a thing as her own will.   
  
She spends a week in solitary. The quiet is not unpleasant, but the cold is, and the thirst quickly becomes unbearable. They give her a small ration of water after the second night and she learns to treasure it. There is Magebane in it. She drinks it all the same.    
They give her some food, she fails to find a pattern in the timing and she fails to recognize what it is she is eating, but she eats it anyway.   
There is a door in her cell. She likes it.   
  
When they come to let her out, she lets them force her up, push her down the corridor, pull her forward to the baths and into the cold water.    
She comes out of the baths on her own legs, clean and shivering and they allow her to get dressed, to put her robes on and to eat and drink from a tray on the floor.   
When she is decent, they let her go back to her everyday life, like nothing happened.    
No one reacts to her return.  
Norwood is back as well.  
  
Nothing happened.    
Nothing is happening. This is important. Everyone is fine.    
The Ostwick Circle is still working in harmony and peace.   
They are good mages.

  
  


She’s twenty four when news from White Spire come to Ostwick.   
The horror of it is surpassed only by the sense of chaos and the dull ache of doubt.   
No one knows what to do.   
  
  
Hayes has been acting strange for weeks, after the summoning for the Conclave of First Enchanters came, but now he suddenly seems like himself again.   
_ It’s done _ , he says.  _ It’s over _ .  
  
And yet nobody moves.   
There’s a weird stillness in the air.  
  
Templars talk between themselves and keep their distance from the mages, they suddenly look worried, almost scared of them, like they never did before.  
  
But they are good mages, there is nothing to fear.   
  
They wait, like Enchanter Lydia said. Wait.   
  
And then the time for waiting is over.

 

It all happens in a blur, days that feel like years but pass like mere seconds.

First is the message. A message from Andoral’s Retreat that says the First Enchanter died during the battle of White Spire.   
The message calls the Circle mages to rise, but no one of them in the Tower gets to read it.   
Senior Enchanter Lydia holds the Tower steady and still and the Templars do nothing.

Then three mages disappear. Easily enough, with chaos and tension, they slip away in the night and the Templars never even try to pursue.   
Knight Commander Vivier declares the Circle on lockdown. Complete seclusion and suspension of teachings, gathering and communal time.

Then it all falls apart.   
  
It doesn’t come by crow or messenger, but the news of the Nevarran Accord annulment gets into the Tower anyway, and so does word of what happened at Darsimuind.   
  
The Templars start to leave.   
It’s not quiet and it’s not organized: they fight among their own ranks, they argue and they shout, swords are drawn and there is blood and chaos.   
When it’s done, only a third of the Templar force is left.   
The Order doesn’t serve the Chantry anymore, and yet they stay.

What drives most of them is loyalty to their charges, force of habit or the desire to keep their post.   
But some of them are different.   
For some of them, this is the chance to take action without the interference of the Chantry.   
Knight Captain Cauldwell is one of them.

  
It’s surprisingly quiet and dignified how mages simply start to disappear.    
It’s also surprisingly difficult to realize it's happening, when they cannot meet anymore in groups, nor talk to each other freely.  
  
Senior Enchanter Lydia is still allowed to summon them and to call small meetings, supervised, of course. She is acting as First Enchanter, even if there is no such a thing anymore, but she is a strong woman, a resourceful woman and her ties to nobility apparently still count for something.    
She calls for caution and for patience and tells them she has already asked help and support from her connections in the Chantry and the few Circles that still remain.   
Enchanter Hayes finds a way to send messages and the one Dorothea receives just says  _ “Be ready.” _

  
It’s late in the afternoon when it really happens, and she is ready. However, she never thought it would happen like that.  
  
Harvine doesn’t betray her intentions until the last second, and by then it’s too late to stop her.   
She doesn’t use a spell, she had a plan, after all.   
The argument they had for the last year and a half has come to its peak, she gets closer to the Senior Enchanter and she is shouting.   
The Templars stand by the doors.   
And then Harvine lounges and it’s over in less than three heartbeats.

Senior Enchanter Lydia is dead and the Ostwick Tower finally erupts.

It’s tame, it’s quiet, if you ask Dora. Just a handful of Templars trying to contain a stream of mages that don’t care about fighting, but just about getting out of there.

Yes, Harvine brings down the west wing of the library, and the ground shakes.   
Yes, the doors have to be burned and shattered and there are flashes of spells, screams, there is blood.   
And yes, of course, the Tranquils are the first ones to fall. They don’t fight and they don’t ask questions when the Templars start butchering them.    
It just happens.  
  
  
She is twenty four and she gets to the top of the stairway in time to see Arwell fall to the ground.    
She’s running, like everyone else, just running away, but she has to get Arwell first, he won’t think to go, if she doesn’t tell him.   
He will never get away, now.

His hair is dark against the stone, fanned around his head like a crown and for a moment, there, she thinks he looks like he’s smiling, floating away on water. The blood takes away any peace from the picture, blood in his hair, from his throat, still coming out in weak spurts, the sound is fading and it’s revolting.

  
She waits for the Templar to see her, she has to. She doesn’t want to strike him without a warning, even if she knows it’s a risk.    
That is what you do, that is how it works: when you are bad, when you do wrong, you get punished.   
She doesn’t wait enough for the Purge to come, just for the realization to dawn of the Templar’s face and then she delivers. It’s quick and it feels bitter in her mouth, but there is no time to feel anything.   
She looks at the bodies once and then she turns away.

 

They are running, there are flames in the tower and even in the gardens the smoke is thick. They cut through the orchard to get to the east wall and then away.   
Away. She doesn’t know where to, but they have to get over the wall and far away from there.   
  
She sees the bodies, all around them, while they run, and she doesn't want to give herself the time to really see them, to recognize familiar faces on the floor. Some of them sneak their way into her mind anyway.   
  
Ser Alfric, burly, with his crooked nose. He always smelled of garlic, under the tang of lyrium and steel. He once told her that he thought it was the saddest thing she was born a mage, for he found her so pretty and so sweet it made his heart cry. She had took it as a compliment and had smiled at him, even if it tasted bitter, for some reason.  
  
Villa, her mouth gaping and her eyes wide, staring and not seeing anymore, her grey curly hair wet with blood, her hands broken, mangled beyond recognition. Those hands had brought countless screaming creatures to life, they had closed so many wounds, comforted so many sorrows and made peace where there was struggle and suffering.   
  
Ser Hamons, still burning, flames licking at his motionless body and giving it an illusion of life with the flicker of fire around him. He had pulled her hair so many times, at night, when he pushed her down on the mattress, that she can feel a phantom feeling in her scalp even now that she’s running and passing him on her way to the orchard.  
  


They run, they cut through the orchard, they cross it, the wall is just a few feet away.  
  
Enchanter Hayes has the time to shout a warning, but it’s too late: something hits her and sends her rolling on the grass. Norwood and Nelvin are already at the wall, but they stop.

Knight Captain Claudwell towers over her, his armor is clean everywhere, except for the gauntlets. There is blood on his hands and she knows most of the screams she heard back inside the tower were his doing.    
He always loved to hear them screaming, after all.   
She looks up and holds his gaze. Steady.   
  


“I always knew I was going to have the pleasure of ending you, Trevelyan. I just had to wait.”

His sword is not as clean as his armor and he smiles when he starts to bring it down towards her.

They attack, all at once, without need for a signal, and it’s deadly and glorious.   
It’s fire from Nelvin, brute force of spirit from Nor, but from her staff and Hayes’ it’s lightning. Bright, hot and furious, the strike merges midway and hits.

  
Knight Captain Claudwell burns.   
He doesn’t have time to scream.

 

She is twenty four. Hayes gets to a halt at the top of a hill and when she gets to him, with Norwood and Nelvin right beside her, she can see as well. There are fields, down south, and then it becomes rocks and sand and here it is: the sea.   
The Free Marches come down to the coast and when they resurface, far in the distance, they become Ferelden.   
There is nothing for them at Andoral’s Reach, if the rumors are right. Maybe there is nothing at all, anywhere, but they have to go.   
  
At night, hiding in a small cave, not daring to light a fire, waiting to hear the sound of armored boots and wondering where the others, their fellow Ostwick mages have gone, they are worried, but they are not scared. 

“We’re Apostates, now…” Nelvin sounds almost like he's testing the word as it rolls from his tongue.

  
She looks into the night sky, just outside, then closes her eyes and inhales the scent of seawater and a storm, coming from the ocean.  
  
Apostates. It’s a word, just a word and a death sentence now. And it’s new. She is not scared.  
  
“We’re free.”

She tastes the words on her lips and they’re not as sweet as she had imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a difficult chapter to write. I wanted it to follow Canon as much as possible, but at some point I had to come up with a version of the events that necessarily diverges from some of the sources you can find in game. That is, of course, because the sources are discordant in the first place, so you have to choose: which one is more plausible? Which one do you want to believe? This is my version of what happened, or, to be fair, this is Dorothea's version.
> 
> I mention events that are important for the development of the story of the Mage Rebellion but I didn't dwell on them and I did not wanted to narrate them explicitly.  
> Things like the Nevarran Accord annulment, or the battle at White Spire are told in details on the wiki and in the novel Asunder. You can learn more about that reading the canon sources or, for the purpose of this fic you can just keep in mind this: shit went down, it wasn't pretty and Templars and Mages both took hard blows form that. But the Mages got it a little worse.


	6. Chapter 6

They walk. They hide. They wait.

“We need to find passage on a ship here…” Nelvin points at a line in the sand that represents the tract of coast they’re on; the map is crude but accurate. “...and try to get to Highever. It’s not ideal, but beats the alternative.”

“The alternative being Kirkwall? That is not an option, Nelvin.” Hayes is right, of course. Kirkwall is out of the question.  
  
“I’m not saying it is one, I’m just saying that… Listen, we have to cross the gulf, somehow, and then we’ll have a lot to worry about, even if we are lucky enough to get safely to Ferelden.”  
  
“There should be a small port, here.” Norwood puts a pebble halfway between where they are and Kirkwall. “More of a dock, really. They use it for fishing and… uhm, smuggling, if I remember correctly. Or so Latea used to say. She was from around there.”   
  
“Smuggling sounds perfect.” She smiles.

“And then what? If we want to reach Redcliffe we’ll have to cross the Bannorn and it’s not going to be easy…” Nelvin states the obvious, but he’s the practical one among them.  
  
She knows it’s time. She has waited long enough and it’s only fair that she told them. She just… In these few days, outside the Circle, they have fallen in a rhythm that is new, foreign and, at the same time perfectly familiar and comfortable.  
They talk, they walk, they camp, and they laugh, surprisingly enough.

Norwood is good at tracking their way outside the roads and after the first day he’s fallen into the role of guide without hesitation. Nelvin can hunt and when they go to sleep he puts small traps along with the glyphs, to alert them of anything that should come near. Hayes looks like he’s ten years younger and has a wild light in his eyes. He plans, and he never loses sight of their surroundings, it’s like having a bird of prey with them. 

At night they camp and they sleep close to each other. It’s strange, at first, and falling asleep seems impossible out there. They’ve spent their all lives together and yet incredibly alone and now…   
Norwood snores. The first time it happens she cannot help but laugh out loud, waking him up. She finds out Nelvin is awake and he’s laughing as well. It’s silly, and it’s really not that funny, but they are so surprised it takes them a while to stop. Norwood is confused, at first, and then self conscious when he tells them to stop and to let them all go back to sleep.   
Nor snores. She never heard someone snore, not so close to her. She likes it, even if she has a hard time falling asleep.    
  
When she wakes up she feels something heavy and warm around her waist and for a moment she is disoriented and scared. It takes her a while to unfreeze, shaking away the panic that has seized her, to realize that it’s just Nelvin’s arm, protectively cast around her, and it’s Nelvin’s breath she can feel on the back of her head.    
He greets her good morning and when she turns to face him she finds him smiling. He is warm, and slightly tousled and when he pulls her into a hug and hold her she revels in the feeling of his heart beating, of his chest rising and falling. It’s familiar, and yet it’s new and even if they fit perfectly into each other’s arms, she feels there is nothing more than that. It’s comfortable and it's sensuous, but there is not a trace of lust to it. 

They stay like that for a long while, until it’s time to get up and start the day, and she feels like she has discovered something amazing and fundamental and at the same time so obvious that it makes her wonder. 

They can touch, now. They can hold each other, hug, and relish in the comfort of warmth and strength, and there is no one they have to hide that from. She feels like she just discovered water for the first time and now she is thirsty like she never drank before. She realises she is not the only one that has found out.    
  
They can touch now, so they all do.    
They help each other climb, they pat each other on the back, they hold hands, and they smile, when they do it.   
The first time Hayes kisses her on her forehead she shivers. It’s spontaneous, done with a laughter on his lips, just after she mockingly pushed him away for the bad joke he told everyone, a silly thing about a goat, a noble and a farmer and they are all laughing, even if it’s a bit lewd and, honestly, shouldn’t he be the one to keep them in line?   
They feel like family. They have known each other for all their lives and yet they are finding out just now who they are.   
  
Nelvin is surprisingly shy, and has the strongest sense of modesty among the four of them.   
Hayes has a mischievous side no one of them suspected and likes to mess with them all.   
Nor gets sad easily and sometimes cries quietly when he thinks they don’t notice.   
And she… She is quiet, she likes to stay silent for hours, even for the whole day if they don’t prompt her to speak, but she loves to hear them talk.   
  
  
She knows she has to tell them.   
  
“...Redcliffe is our only chance. There are others gathering there, and the king of Ferelden has granted safe haven for mages in the region.”   
  
“I’m not going to Redcliffe.”    
There. She said it.

  
They all look at her and the first to understand is Hayes. He always knew her better.   
  
“Dora…” Nor sounds uncertain, he doesn’t understand. “If not Redcliffe, where?”   
She takes a deep breath before speaking. 

 

“Amaranthine. I’m going to Vigil’s Keep.”

  
  


***   
  
  


She’s sitting by the fire, her eyes on the sea, when she hears him approaching.   
  


“Can’t sleep?”    
She doesn’t turn, she knows he can hear her anyway.   
  
“Not even close my eyes. I thought I’d stand watch with you for a while.”   
  
Hayes takes a seat beside her and they stay like that, in silence, for what seems like hours. After a while, he puts an arm around her shoulders and hugs her close to him. They share the warmth and the silence.   
  
When she speaks, she does it softly, almost a whisper. They all speak in hushed tones, these days.   
  
“You think they still have our phylacteries? Why aren’t they using them?”   
  
“I don’t. The west wing exploded, thanks to Harvine. I don’t think she knew, but the vault wouldn’t have survived the blast.”

 

So there is no magical tether, no leash tying them to the Chantry anymore. 

She can almost see all that blood and broken glass, bubbling and sizzling in the fire, the lyrium giving white blue sparks while the stone collapses over the shelves. And then the blood becomes part of the rubble, part of the wreckage, forever bound to the ruins, to the stone. Their blood, and the tower, inseparable. 

 

“I don’t think they will pursue… not anymore. It was over already, before it happened. I hope they’ll find their way, whatever that may be.”

“You are worried for them, aren’t you? For the Templars?” She is not really surprised.

“I am. I lived with some of them all my life, Dorothea. They are lost, now, scattered. What the Chantry does to them, what becomes of them when they take their vows, it’s a horrible thing to do to a person. Now even more so, it’s terrible what will happen now they have nothing to turn to. I’m afraid we still have to see the worst from the Templar Order.”

She shivers. “Some of them were not bad people.”   
“Some of them, yes.”   
“I hope Brenden got out… I don’t understand why he stayed. He could have left when the others did, he wanted to, I think.”   
“I know why. I think you know that as well.” he replies.   
  
She nods, looking at her feet, at the thin, dry grass beneath them. He’s right, naturally.   
“Cauldwell.”   
“He couldn’t leave, not if it meant leaving us with the Knight Captain and his men. It was the same for Alfric.”   
  
“Alfric... I saw him in the south corridor. He was dead.”   
“I’m sorry. He was not a bad man.” Hayes inhales the cold night air.    
His hand on her shoulder is reassuring, warm and when he moves his fingers, halfway between a caress and a comforting knead, she tenses for a moment. This kind of closeness is still new and feels raw, but there, on the road, where there are no Templars or Chantry sisters ready to tell them to stand apart, they are learning to enjoy it. She finds herself leaning into his touch, her muscles relaxing slowly and her breath strangely getting a little more shallow, like she’s about to cry. 

  
It takes him a while to speak again.   
“The life of a Warden is a hard one. Not seldom a brief one. Why now?”

She stops to think about it, really think about it, again. She doesn’t want to give him the response she has prepared - and she does have one - she owes him more than that. She owes him to question it all again, if he asks her, even if she comes to the same conclusion.   
  
“It is worth it. It’s not just to escape, now. It was, at first, the dream of a different life. Of a life, anyway. And then, when we were finally free, I realized that I still wanted to do it, even if I didn’t need it anymore. With the Wardens I could do something with… with myself. I want to give, I want to do, I want… I don’t want it all to have been in vain.” she looks at him and he nods, even if she can see sadness in his eyes.    
  
His hair is the color of old steel and his skin is not smooth, a map of deep lines drawn by time tells the story of frowns and laughters and worries on his face, but his eyes look younger now, in their sadness, than she ever remembers seeing them.    
  
They don’t speak anymore, they don’t need to.    
When silence settles comfortably again, Dora feels the familiar push of her mentor’s magic against hers, but it’s not a shove, nor a tap to remind her of his power. It’s gentle and it’s a question, waiting for her to reply, like arms open for a hug, without moving forward or reaching, just offering.    
His magic brushes against hers carefully and she responds with her own, careful not to ruin the balance they’ve found, but firm enough for him to feel her strength. It’s all they need to say, without words.   
She feels him all around her and she knows he can feel her too. They fit.

  
  
They find passage on a ship, but it takes almost a week of negotiating and waiting, and every night they go to sleep afraid. They fear they’ll wake up and find they have been betrayed to the Templars, or the Chantry or whoever is that is hunting apostates now. They fear their own desperation has made them reckless, naive, they fear it is all going to end in death and defeat, even with the promise of the sea singing to them.    
They go to sleep, but they stay awake. They lie down, they take turns standing watch and they wait.   
  
  


She’s twenty four the night they leave the Free Marches, and twenty five when they finally arrive in Ferelden, the following night. 

Her birthday gift is in every wave that pushes them farther away from Ostwick, from home, from everything she has known all her life and into danger, into the future. 


End file.
